Writing — My Silent Companion
Coming out proudly and saying that you’ve a soul of a writer is as difficult as coming out from the closet and saying, you’re gay.
Opening admitting that you like writing and want to be a writer is not an easy task. You’re so afraid of being ridiculed when you say you like writing. I know I was, for years.
For years, I kept writing in my notebooks, my diaries, my phone, but I never even admitted to myself that writing is what I truly liked.
To me, it was just a hobby, an outlet to release and express my emotions.
As far as I remember, words were the only companions I had since childhood. They just come easy to me; I know how they can make your tongue bitter, and make you hold your breath.
My father was a police officer working in Bihar Govt Prisons in India. Once he was posted in Biharsharif Prison when I was barely 10. There was absolutely “nothing” there except a monsoon river on one side that only came alive once a year, a football stadium, an open crematorium, a deep forest, and obviously the prison and its residential staff quarters sitting somewhere among them.
Father’s job was also transferable. I was almost always the only child of my age in those places. That’s how I spent most of my childhood, alone, just with myself, roaming around, trying to find meaning out of everything. Sometimes, I look back and cannot stop smiling; what gorgeous days they were.
During those times, for me, the only way to communicate with others was to write stories and send them to a bunch of children’s magazines.
My old collections of cartoons and magazines were my only constant companions. Out of options, I used to re-read them and then write some more to send them the next day.
I even got lucky once, and my story was published in the Saturday edition of the Hindustan newspaper (it was called “Sopan”).
For me, life has been a lonely journey since the beginning, and I’m quite used to it. Perhaps, it’s more than that; I am addicted to it like cigarettes, can’t leave it. I don’t even want to leave it. I just like it the way it is. I love my loneliness. I love my solitude.
Out of everything, writing is the only true companion of mine that never left my side. Silently, it has rescued me so many times, and I am going to embrace it as part of my identity.
I hesitated for years to call myself a writer, but what’s the point in being afraid? If I will be good, I will be found. If not, nobody cares, nothing changes, the universe remains the same.
It’s time, I should admit. I am coming out of the shadow, my self-imposed limitations and I call myself a writer.
